Do you have iTunes configured to automatically download Artwork? This is vital.

Vital indeed. Thanks a lot, it is working now. Also, just to double check, stuff in [] and () is being omitted when doing the iTunes query, right?So,

Album: "Be my guest [CDM]"Song: "Suprnature (Super Remix)"

would be queried as

Album: "Be my guest"Song: "Suprnature"

right?

Also, I noticed that the program asks which artist it should look for when something like "Artist B & Artist C" is written in the album tag. Couldn't the program just try to use the tag as is and then each of Artist B and Artist C individually? Sometimes that's just what the name of the artist is, but iTunes may or may not have at listed as one of the individual artist names.It should also do this distinction when there is a + between the two artists. So, "Artist B + Artist C".

Thank You

This post has been edited by Jojo: Dec 7 2008, 06:11

--------------------

--alt-presets are there for a reason! These other switches DO NOT work better than it, trust me on this.LAME + Joint Stereo doesn't destroy 'Stereo'

I couldn't find the automatically download iTunes Artwork checkbox in the latest version of iTunes, where is it?

They just can't leave their options alone, can they?

Look in edit -> preferences -> store tab

I'm still fiddling around with my auto-ratings, and I need help. I want a very simple rating based on plays per month (PPM), week, whatever. Basically an average plays per time period.

Here's what I've done. I've backed up and cleared my library, then tweaked my calendar to add a song to my library on 12/1/07, a duplicate on 3/1/08, and again on 6/1/08. This effectively gives me the exact same song added 12 months, 9 months, and 6 months ago. I then 'cheated' and incremented their play counts to 12, 9, and 6 respectively.

My goal is to set auto-ratings up to make them all equal in this respect. (Basically they've all been played once per month.) I tried the default settings for date added and number of plays, and it came out perfect: all 5 stars. So far so good.

Then I tried changing the 12 month song to only 6 plays, which equals 1 play every 2 months. I wanted this to rate at 2.5 stars since it's had half the average plays the other two had: .5 PPM vs. 1 PPM.

But no matter what I do, they all keep rating 5 stars. The only change I get is if i set plays to zero, I get zero stars. Is there a combination of settings I can use to accomplish this? Or any suggestions?

2/ It's not going to be easy stripping languages using string manipulation because it is a blind process resulting a dirty job. One would also then need the ability to select which language to save lyrics in.

I understand that you can't guess whether a foreign language is used. However, there is a specific tag that lyricswiki uses for translations. That tag is always the same and follows the pattern:

CODE

===Portuguese==='''''Note:''' [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brazilian portuguese Brazilian Portuguese] is used in this translation.''<lyric>blablabla</lyric>

another example:

CODE

===Bulgarian==='''''Note:''' [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bulgarian Bulgarian] is used in this translation.''<lyric>blablabla</lyric>

so that seems like an easy thing to match with regular expressions. What do you think?

QUOTE

3/ Next builds of iTSfv will attempt to trim unnecessary line breaks at the end of the lyrics.

thanks a lot

--------------------

--alt-presets are there for a reason! These other switches DO NOT work better than it, trust me on this.LAME + Joint Stereo doesn't destroy 'Stereo'

I use a different program for tagging my mp3 files, but need to use itunes to sync to my ipod touch.I have been using this awesome utility's synchroclean feature to keep the itunes database in sync with the physical mp3 files in my music library folder.For this, it's working flawlessly.However, as itunes doesn't use the standard rating tag stored in the files, all of my songs end up in itunes with a blank rating field. This prevents me from using some of the ratings-based playlists I use in my music player on the pc.I did try the button 'Import rating and playedcount data from POPM and PCNT frames' but after it processed, all songs showin in itunes still have no ratings shown.If it is possible to get the ratings from the mp3 file tags and put them in itunes, please point me towards the appropriate steps I need to take to make this happen.Thanks for all your work on this project.

...I want a very simple rating based on plays per month (PPM), week, whatever. Basically an average plays per time period...

Good God, I really respect your work on ITSFV more now. Being open source, I tried to look at the code to see if I could figure out how to make this work. I've done some basic scripting and batch files, but apart from being able to figure out the logic in your code I got lost.

IIRC, the calculations are:

Played Count = #times played / the highest #times played in the librarySkipped Count = #times played / #times played + #times skippedLast Played = #times played - #days since last played / #times playedDate Added = #days since added - #days since last played / #days since added

I guess what I'm trying to accomplish would be more along the lines of:

Basic Score = (Played Count/Days Since Added) - deductions for Days Since Last Played - deductions for Times Skipped

It's obvious you put a lot of thought and work into your formulas, so mine are probably overly simple. But that is the general effect I'm looking for, I just can't seem to tweak the settings to get it...

I'm a tad OCD about this now.

I realize this may be specific just to me, so I would really appreciate any help in this respect. I made a small PayPal donation, and I hope it's not in bad form, but if you can help me out I'd gladly make an additional PayPal donation to you.

I see. That makes sense. I'll talk to you in a couple on months then. Good luck

QUOTE

QUOTE

Hi,

I was wondering whether you are still checking the forums here or if you are moved on / are busy with other stuff.

Later

Hi Jojo,

Still there! Sorry I have been extremely busy with thesis work. Can't put mind to anything else that feels guilty doing.

I am hoping we could get back to all of this in 5 months.

Best, McoreD

unfortunately I am really busy in this coming months because it is nearly the few final months of my Earthquake engineering project I mentioned a few posts earlier. I can do any help to get your up and running iTSfv form source so you can tinker it. I will get back to action better than ever after this June.

unfortunately I am really busy in this coming months because it is nearly the few final months of my Earthquake engineering project I mentioned a few posts earlier. I can do any help to get your up and running iTSfv form source so you can tinker it. I will get back to action better than ever after this June. McoreD.

Hmmm, that sounds a tad more important than ITSfv.

I've looked around trying to figure how to fiddle with the source, and Googled around a bit as well... but have no idea where to start. Know of any good tutorials you can point me to?

Hi, I've just installed iTSfv (5.60.25.1) on Vista for the first time but I just cannot get it to run. This program looks so useful but I keep getting the following errors:

1. Could not find a part of the path 'T:\iTSfv\Logs\' (where T: happens to be my 'Documents' folder on a network drive.)

2. Unhandled exception error.... The property 'ExportTrackPatterns' could not be created from it's default value. Error message: Access to the temp directory is denied. Identity <my username> under which XmlSerializer is running does not have sufficient permission to access the temp directory....

If I then press Continue the application opens so I try to change the folder locations in Options, but this fails and I continue to get permission errors.

My account has Admin rights so I should have permission; I've also tried running the program "As Administrator" but it still does not work.

Also, I recently upgraded to Microsoft .NET Framework 3.5 SP1; could that be a problem?

When running iTSfv, iTunes will lock up or even crash. I've narrowed down the bug a bit. When iTSfv is importing artwork from the iTunes database, it will lock up or crash, but when importing artwork from a local file such as folder.jpg it works perfectly. I've used iTSfv version 5.60 and 5.61 and it happens with both.

Great frickin' app! Main reason I tried it was to get my Ratings from J. River Media Jukebox into iTunes. But I can't seem to get that to work. I have it set to pull the ratings from the POPM frame and I've verified using MP3Tag that there is a rating in there (a 5 is set to 255) but I don't get anything when I validate. Any ideas?

just wanted to stop by and say howdy, see how things are goin' with this project of yours, McoreD.i had a bad crash and 2000 tags were scrambled (300+ folders) and so i'm goin' to use your program again.so again, thank you much sir, good luck with all your endeavors & as soon as i get a job (read: i'm unemployed) i will make sure to send a donation that way lol.

Each of my album folders has nice high res folder.jpg. Is the only way to have both iTunes and iPod display this folder.jpg by embedding the folder.jpgs into each of the tracks? Is there not a way to have iTunes cache all these folder.jpgs into its own file system the way it does for downloaded artwork? Thanks...

EDIT: There is no way for that to happen without embedding the files or have iTunes cache its own artwork.

Things are coming along nicely with this app. Thanks for your efforts!

Here's something I've been trying to make work. Thanks to your app, I've been able to embed all folder.jpgs I've collected with Album Art Downloader into the tracks. Now, I'm quite sure for some albums at least, iTunes has better artwork than some of the jpgs I've found. So, in order to compare what iTunes has, I select 3 items as possible sources for artwork - the folder jpg, iTunes artwork cache, and the iTMS itself. Then, I select 'manually choose' (also in the advanced settings). When I validate the library, I will be given a choice between what iTunes has to offer and the folder.jpg as to which gets embedded into the tracks. Two problems with this method: 1. It requires a very long time to sit in front of your computer as you must respond to the prompts. 2. Because the thumbnails presented are so tiny, there's no way to determine actual quality aside from the resolution. As we all know, there is often no relation between resolution and quality. [EDIT: Found out I can double-click on the thumbnail to enlarge.]

I think there should be better way to do this, but I'm trying to determine how. Is there any straightforward way to simply take either the cached iTMS artwork or the artwork downloaded straight from iTMS and export directly to the album's folder *without* embedding to the tracks and have them be named artwork.jpg in one fell swoop? That way, I can examine with good ol' Windows Explorer and determine which artwork I keep by comparing the existing folder.jpg (from Album Art Downloader) with the newly downloaded artwork.jpg (iTMS). Then, I can simply delete one of them. Next, I could go ahead and validate the entire library while embedding with the one JPG left in the album folder. This way, one would not have to choose artwork throughout the entire library's validation process.

Thanks...

EDIT: I think the one-click "Export iTunes Store Artwork" is what I would need to accomplish the above, but nothing seems to happen if I hit it. I've selected a folder for export in the options. Additionally, I see the option to export iTMS artwork for selected tracks. This seems to be doing more, as it takes about 20 seconds for any selected track, but nothing is downloaded with this method either. ?? I've searched the manual, and there's nothing to suggest that it shouldn't work. Anything I'm overlooking?

EDIT2: Could it be that because almost 99% of my tracks have embedded art, this whole "exporting iTMS artwork" does not work? I found that if I select one of the few albums that do not have artwork embedded, I can get the app to prompt me for a DL location after hitting the "export artwork from selected tracks", but this does not work on any of the albums I've tried *with* artwork embedded. Also, the one-click "Export iTMS Store Artwork" doesn't appear to be doing anything at all, i.e. the specified download directory is empty.

How is it best to handle podcasts with this app? If I add the podcast folder to the list of music folders, iTMSfv tries to validate them. If I remove the podcast folder from the list of music folders, iTMSfv removes the podcasts from the iTunes database!

I just downloaded the new version and the following bug is still there:

QUOTE (Jojo @ Nov 22 2008, 22:49)

In addition, for some odd reason, lyrics imported from get extra line spaces in between.

Something like;

QUOTE

Princess cards she sends me with her regards,Oh, bar-room eyes shine vacancyTo see her you gotta look hard

has turned into

QUOTE

Princess cards she sends me with her regards,

Oh, bar-room eyes shine vacancy

To see her you gotta look hard

not funny

Could this issue be iTunes related? Maybe the changed something in their API. I tried at least 10 different ITSFV versions, some all the way back from early 2008 and all of them added the extra spaces when importing lyrics locally.

This post has been edited by Jojo: May 23 2009, 03:03

--------------------

--alt-presets are there for a reason! These other switches DO NOT work better than it, trust me on this.LAME + Joint Stereo doesn't destroy 'Stereo'

nevermind. The problem was that my lyric files used a non-dos line break (caused by an earlier bug of the program). As soon as I manually convert them, they import fine. The new build exports (and hence imports) the files fine.

This post has been edited by Jojo: May 23 2009, 03:38

--------------------

--alt-presets are there for a reason! These other switches DO NOT work better than it, trust me on this.LAME + Joint Stereo doesn't destroy 'Stereo'

So I'm using the latest version of ITSFV, which works great, and is the best tagging/fixing software I've ever used, by far.

However, I'm running into some issues with the "year" tag. Specifically, it's not being filled in for me. I'm using the "validate selected tags" button, which seems to get the lyrics, artwork, etc - but not the year. That's important because once my music is correctly cataloged, I wanted to make smart playlists based on favorite songs in a certain year, (ie, all 5 star songs from 1998). Am I doing something wrong? Perhaps missing a check box?

So, ITSFV has forced me to fix so much of my tags, including many where the artists were spelled wrong, or might have had a space at the end of their name (and were listed separately). My question is - I had some folders called "Wycleff Jean", "Wyclef Jeane", etc. - now they're empty, save for artwork. How can I tell ITSFV to delete all those folders (once it's confirmed that there is no music in them)?

Next - how can ITSFV find a track and all it's information if the album name isn't present in the existing ID3 tag? I seem to have gotten many mp3s from friends over the years, and since ITSFV doesn't have the album info in in the tag, it really can't do anything. I'd love if it found the first album it was available on (not the Greatest Hits) and filled everything else in.

Also - and this is just a suggestion - on a "Greatest Hits" type album, could the software fill in the year a track was popular as opposed to the year the Greatest Hits album was released? Perhaps you could query the database for "first year song was available" or "year the first album with this song was available". Just an idea, because that would help with my 5-star playlist featuring songs from 1998.

Options, tracks, artwork:...Import Artwork in album folder from selected and set to Folder.jpg...Import Artwork from any single image file in album folder checked and unchecked tried...Do Nots all unchecked

When I validate tracks, it correctly recognizes the artwork as missing, but does nothing about it!

Help!

Other questions:

Some of the artwork iTunes automatically downloaded is wrong, or from a different release of an album, etc. Would like those to use my Folder.jpg art as well. Hopefully when I get the first part working, then the Prompt settings in OneTouch options will come into play.

I have a bunch of collections and soundtracks with [album artist] set to "Various", but iTunes insists on listing every track as a different albums in grid and cover flow. Any ideas how to resolve this?

So I'm using the latest version of ITSFV, which works great, and is the best tagging/fixing software I've ever used, by far.

However, I'm running into some issues with the "year" tag. Specifically, it's not being filled in for me. I'm using the "validate selected tags" button, which seems to get the lyrics, artwork, etc - but not the year. That's important because once my music is correctly cataloged, I wanted to make smart playlists based on favorite songs in a certain year, (ie, all 5 star songs from 1998). Am I doing something wrong? Perhaps missing a check box?

So, ITSFV has forced me to fix so much of my tags, including many where the artists were spelled wrong, or might have had a space at the end of their name (and were listed separately). My question is - I had some folders called "Wycleff Jean", "Wyclef Jeane", etc. - now they're empty, save for artwork. How can I tell ITSFV to delete all those folders (once it's confirmed that there is no music in them)?

Next - how can ITSFV find a track and all it's information if the album name isn't present in the existing ID3 tag? I seem to have gotten many mp3s from friends over the years, and since ITSFV doesn't have the album info in in the tag, it really can't do anything. I'd love if it found the first album it was available on (not the Greatest Hits) and filled everything else in.

Also - and this is just a suggestion - on a "Greatest Hits" type album, could the software fill in the year a track was popular as opposed to the year the Greatest Hits album was released? Perhaps you could query the database for "first year song was available" or "year the first album with this song was available". Just an idea, because that would help with my 5-star playlist featuring songs from 1998.

Thanks.

Hi All,

I am slowly starting to reply all of your posts after a massive break due to other reasons.

I am brainstorming ideas for iTSfv 6 which will be a rewrite from ground up.

My initial plans for iTSfv 6 are:

1. Complete support for Multi-disc albums when adding new music to iTunes: automatic guessing of Disc Count and Disc Number from file system 2. Ability to add a folder of tracks at once 3. Prevent scanning iTunes Library.xml on startup to improve load time 4. Zero errors while iTSfv is operating 5. Making use of editable Location property 6. Ability to prevent storing artwork in Artwork folder

skaorsk8,

iTSfv does not automatically find Year tag from online sources. It is definitely a preferable option to have.

should list all the tracks without Album tag etc. will take care of deleting empty folders without audio files.

QUOTE (AWD_Guy @ Jun 2 2009, 09:37)

I feel stupid. I am trying to do what I think is one of the simpleist bullet items from the 1st post and failing...

Copy Folder.jpg to album folders

I am making the assumption this will copy all my wonderful folder.jpg cover art into something iTunes will like without embedding it in the MP3s, right?

All my music is in self managed folders that I use Media Monkey as my PC based manager/player. (Please do not suggest I just use that to manage my iPod.)

Options, tracks, artwork:...Import Artwork in album folder from selected and set to Folder.jpg...Import Artwork from any single image file in album folder checked and unchecked tried...Do Nots all unchecked

When I validate tracks, it correctly recognizes the artwork as missing, but does nothing about it!

Help!

Other questions:

Some of the artwork iTunes automatically downloaded is wrong, or from a different release of an album, etc. Would like those to use my Folder.jpg art as well. Hopefully when I get the first part working, then the Prompt settings in OneTouch options will come into play.

I have a bunch of collections and soundtracks with [album artist] set to "Various", but iTunes insists on listing every track as a different albums in grid and cover flow. Any ideas how to resolve this?

Thanks

AWD_Guy,

iTunes imports artwork from file by embedding the artwork. So this won't do what you expect (without embedding).

If iTSfv recognizes the artwork is missing but does nothing about it then most probably the music files are not writable by iTunes. Possible cause is Read-Only attributes set in files. iTSfv will log errors in to warnings-200906.txt that is in Documents\iTSfv\Logs folder.

You might like to experiment with Manual Artwork choosing dialog here:

My "Various Artists" folder in Grid View:

I would really like to find out the exact reason why it is doing that for you. Have you tried Mp3tag or foobar2000 and making sure %BAND% (TPE2) is filled?

How is it best to handle podcasts with this app? If I add the podcast folder to the list of music folders, iTMSfv tries to validate them. If I remove the podcast folder from the list of music folders, iTMSfv removes the podcasts from the iTunes database!